Digital Home Thoughts: How Microsoft Designed and Built the Xbox 360

"The Xbox 360 console is Microsoft's living room Trojan horse, purchased as a game box but capable of so much more in the realm of digital entertainment in the living room. Since the day after Microsoft terminated the Ultimate TV box, in February 2002, Baker has been working on the Xbox 360 silicon architecture team at Microsoft's campus in Mountain View, Calif. He is one of the 3DO survivors who now gets a shot at revenge against the Japanese companies that vanquished his old firm. "It feels good," says Baker. "I can play it at home with the kids. It's family-friendly, and I don't have to play on the Nintendo anymore." Baker is one of the people behind the scenes who pulled together the Xbox 360 console by engineering some of the most complicated chips ever designed for a consumer entertainment device. The team labored for years and made critical decisions that enabled Microsoft to beat Sony and Nintendo to market with a new box, despite a late start with the Xbox in the previous product cycle. Their story, captured here and in a forthcoming book by the author of this article, illustrates the ups and downs in any big project."



This is a great article to read if you want to understand just how much talent and brains it took to make the Xbox 360 a reality. Absolutely incredible. All that hard work really shows. The 360 is more than just a game console, it's a digital entertainment powerhouse. You can stream TV, movies, music, download high-definition movie trailers, play casual games, and soon you'll be able to watch HD-DVD movies on your Xbox 360. That sort of flexibility and horsepower doesn't come easy, especially at such a low price. My hat's off to the entire Xbox team, job extremely well done.